The Successful Bookkeeper Podcast

Michael Palmer
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The Successful Bookkeeper Podcast is a weekly show to help increase your confidence, work smarter and build a business you love. Each week you'll listen to inspiring guests who will share their success secrets, so you can take your bookkeeping enterprise and life to another level. Some of them include New York Times Best-Selling Author of E-Myth, Michael E. Gerber, Pure Bookkeeping Co-Founder, Debbie Roberts, the host of The Productive Woman podcast, Laura McClellan and the author of *I Know How She Does It*, Laura Vanderkam. If you're a bookkeeping business owner who is looking for an uplifting, entertaining and informative podcast exclusively for YOU then you have arrived at the right place! Get ready because your journey towards success begins — now. Your Host Michael Palmer is an acclaimed business coach who has helped hundreds of bookkeepers across the world push through their fears and exponentially grow their businesses and achieve the quality of life they've always wanted.

  1. 4d ago

    EP548: Julie Daniluk - Sitting Is The New Smoking: How Bookkeepers Can Work And Move

    See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → If you work 8-plus hours a day in front of a screen, your body is paying a price you may not fully see yet. In this episode, host Michael Palmer welcomes back nutritionist, TV host, and bestselling author Julie Daniluk for a frank conversation about what sedentary desk work is actually doing to bookkeepers' bodies — and, more importantly, what you can do about it starting today. Chapters [00:00] Standing desk setup intro[01:37] Julie's plane crash recovery[03:54] Why sitting harms your body[07:00] Walking pads and movement snacks[09:48] Diagnosing your energy crashes[12:00] Continuous glucose monitors explained[17:00] Oura Ring and sleep tracking[21:00] Hidden energy thieves and diet[26:00] Ketones, brain fog, and yerba mate[30:00] LumaBody program and resourcesSitting Is the New Smoking The phrase sounds dramatic until you hear what the research actually shows. "Sitting still for 8 hours a day is absolutely horrendous for your health," Julie explains. "You end up with very poor blood sugar control. It reduces your insulin sensitivity. It's hard on your heart, and it certainly reduces your circulation." The solution, she argues, isn't to stretch after work — it's to stop sitting so much in the first place. A desk topper that converts any standard surface into a standing workspace, combined with a compact walking pad (now as small as 2.5 feet long), can let you move your legs while you work without disrupting your typing rhythm. Alternating between a standing position and a balance ball chair throughout the day adds an unexpected core workout on top of the circulation benefits. Movement Snacks and the Hourly Reset Julie recommends treating movement the way many bookkeepers treat their billable time — in structured intervals. "Every hour you should be taking a small movement break," she says, whether that's 50 squats, calf raises, arm swings, or even just tapping your feet under the desk. She calls these "movement snacks," and the research behind them is clear: brief bouts of muscle activity pull blood sugar down, restore circulation, and fight the metabolic slowdown that comes with prolonged stillness. Pets help too — Julie walks her dog twice a day and counts an energetic ball-throwing session in the backyard as a legitimate movement break. Tracking Your Metabolic Health One of the most practical tools discussed in this episode is the continuous glucose monitor (CGM) — a small microchip worn on the back of the arm that pairs with a smartphone app to show real-time blood sugar readings throughout the day. No doctor's prescription required; they're available at most drugstores. Julie uses them regularly with clients and consistently finds surprises: smoothies, fruit-bottomed yogurt, and white rice can spike blood sugar just as sharply as obvious offenders like donuts. "It's going to give you charts and graphs to show you" exactly which foods cause peaks and crashes — and the crashes, she notes, are when fatigue, brain fog, and headaches hit hardest. The Oura Ring comes up as a complementary tracker for sleep quality, with Julie crediting mouth taping and acupuncture for doubling her nightly deep sleep. Hidden Energy Thieves Beyond movement, Julie identifies several drains that busy bookkeepers rarely connect to their afternoon slumps. Liquid calories — think blended coffee drinks topping 700 calories — don't register as fullness the way solid food does, so they spike insulin without satisfying hunger. Ultra-processed foods borrow nutrients like B vitamins, zinc, and chromium from your body's own reserves just to metabolize their empty carbohydrates, leaving you with less energy than you started with. Food sensitivities to gluten, corn, soy, or refined sugar can trigger an immune response that feels like pure exhaustion. And caffeine, she clarifies, doesn't give you energy — it suppresses adenosine, your body's fatigue signal, which is a very different thing. Her recommended alternative: yerba mate, which naturally stimulates GLP-1, reduces appetite, and delivers gentler stimulation without wrecking sleep. Fueling Your Brain Differently For bookkeepers struggling with brain fog, Julie points to ketones as an underused fuel source. When sugar intake drops, the liver produces ketones that can power the brain with remarkable clarity. "In the absence of sugar, how extraordinary my focus and memory really can be," she says, drawing on her own experience managing ADHD through nutrition. Therapeutic ketone powders and medium-chain triglycerides (from coconut products) offer a way to access this fuel without committing to a strict ketogenic diet. She also advocates for a protein-forward breakfast — a batch-cooked frittata made with a dozen eggs, roasted peppers, olives, and feta — as a practical way to stabilize blood sugar from the first hour of the workday and push carbohydrates to the evening, when they support sleep rather than afternoon crashes. Links Mentioned Desk topper / standing desk riser — links to be added in episode resourcesWalking pad (compact) — links to be added in episode resourcesContinuous glucose monitor (CGM) — available at major drugstores; pairs with a smartphone appOura Ring — ouraring.comLumaBody metabolic health program — juliedaniluk.comThe Successful Bookkeeper community — community.thesuccessfulbookkeeper.comAbout the Guest Julie Daniluk is a registered nutritionist, TV host, and bestselling author whose work focuses on anti-inflammatory nutrition and metabolic health. She is the Program Director of LumaBody, a 12-week coaching program designed to help people reduce visceral fat, lower inflammatory markers, and build lasting energy through food and lifestyle changes. After recovering from a serious plane incident in Vancouver, Julie brings a deeply personal as well as professional perspective to walking her talk every single day. Find her at juliedaniluk.com and on social media at @JulieDaniluk.

  2. Sep 1

    EP547: Lara Manton - Bookkeeping Isn't Dead: How to evolve and add real client value

    See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → Lara Manton has a gift for reframing panic as possibility. The founder of ACE-XL Ltd and a 15-year UK bookkeeping veteran, Lara delivered a talk at Accountex titled I've Watched Bookkeeping Die 3 Times — and in this episode she brings that same clear-eyed optimism to Michael Palmer. If you've been anxious about AI or wondering whether your role still matters, this conversation will shift your thinking. Chapters [00:00] Opening quote on client value [01:18] Welcome and guest introduction [03:30] The provocative LinkedIn article [06:30] Defining what bookkeeping really is [10:00] Three times bookkeeping 'died' [15:00] AI as shepherd, not replacement [18:30] Who thrived through each shift [23:00] Evaluating tech without chasing shiny objects [27:30] Rising professionalism and community [31:30] Biggest opportunity the profession must not miss Three "Deaths" That Were Actually Rebirths Lara's three moments of supposed bookkeeping extinction track neatly with major industry shifts: the cloud and OCR revolution, COVID forcing everyone to work remotely, and now the rise of AI agents. Each time, the prediction was the same — software will replace the bookkeeper. Each time, the profession adapted and came out doing more meaningful work. "Every time the software changes," Lara says, "it changes what bookkeepers do. It changes the nature of bookkeeping, maybe not what we do, but how we do it." The Core Job Has Never Changed Strip away the tools and the underlying mission is the same it has always been: get accurate data to help businesses make decisions. Lara argues that AI and automation simply speed up the data-gathering part, which frees bookkeepers to spend more time on the part that actually matters to clients. "The rewarding thing isn't entering data," she says. "The rewarding thing is understanding a business and helping a business owner. And that bit doesn't change." Humanity Is the Competitive Advantage The bookkeepers who thrived through every disruption shared one trait: they stayed curious about their clients. Lara makes the case that asking the right questions — specific to each business, not generic ones — is where the real value lives. "You can learn to ask the right questions, not the questions that everyone asks, but the right questions for that business. And then that's where you can start to add value. Because unless you actually relate those numbers back to the business itself and what they're trying to achieve, those numbers are gonna mean nothing to them." She warns that if you communicate like a robot, AI will eventually be able to replace you — but the innately human skills of listening, pattern recognition, and relationship-building are much harder to replicate. Thinking Clearly About AI Tools Lara draws a sharp line between AI accounting tools and accounting tools with AI built in. The former often lack foundational accounting knowledge; the latter layer intelligence on top of proven principles. She shared a real example: a client ran their VAT return through Claude and came back with a list of confused questions — because the AI didn't understand international reverse charge VAT. "It's about shepherding that information and reviewing the information rather than necessarily doing the data entry, but being aware of the other things that matter to a business owner." The lesson: use AI to augment your expertise, not to bypass the need for it. A Rising Tide for the Whole Profession Lara sees bookkeeping's public profile improving — driven partly by institutional efforts in the UK to bring bookkeeping into university curricula, and partly by accountants increasingly recognising bookkeepers as collaborative partners rather than a cheaper alternative. She also points to the bookkeeping community's culture of sharing as a quiet competitive strength. "Bookkeepers talk to one another. We don't gatekeep in the same way. We share information quite freely." That generosity of knowledge, she believes, is one of the things that will carry the profession forward — and attract software companies who want to build better products with practitioner input. Links Mentioned Lara Manton on LinkedIn — connect with Lara directly ACE-XL Ltd — Lara's finance process consultancy for larger businesses LJM Bookkeeping — Lara's UK bookkeeping practice PureBookkeeping.com — episode sponsor, proven system for growing your bookkeeping business thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com — free business-building resources About the Guest Lara Manton is the founder of ACE-XL Ltd and runs LJM Bookkeeping, a UK-based practice working with limited companies and service-based businesses. A two-time Xero Award winner — including Xero's first UK Bookkeeper / Small Firm of the Year — Lara sits on the ICB's Advisory Board and chairs their Tech Board. She has spoken at every major UK accounting event, including Accountex, and works with approximately 50 clients worldwide across outsourced finance and bookkeeping engagements.

  3. Aug 25

    EP546: Alex Lee - The Future Is Still You: Why AI Makes Bookkeepers More Valuable

    See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → If you've been watching the AI wave roll in and wondering what it means for your bookkeeping practice, this episode is for you. Alex Lee, co-founder and CEO of Truewind, brings a clear-eyed perspective grounded in three and a half years of building AI tools specifically for accountants. His message is direct: the future of accounting has always been about you, and that isn't changing. Chapters [00:00] Opening: Fear and Opportunity [01:18] Alex Lee's Unlikely Path to AI [04:18] The Future Is Still You [08:00] Will AI Replace Bookkeepers? [12:00] Crawl, Walk, Run: Getting Started [16:30] AI Adoption Across the Profession [19:30] Data Privacy and Security Checklist [24:00] Vision for Accounting's Future [27:00] About Truewind The Work That Has Always Mattered Alex draws a useful historical line — from carving debits and credits in limestone, to paper ledgers, to file cabinets, to cloud software, and now AI. "I see AI as the next iteration of technology that may shape how accountants are doing the work," he says. "But ultimately, the work of the accountants is the same." What AI does is create space for bookkeepers to spend more time on the things that are genuinely hard to automate: being a trusted advisor, being a real business partner, and — as Alex puts it — shaking hands and looking someone in the eye. Those things don't disappear no matter how good the models get. The Spreadsheet Comparison Worth Remembering When the fear of replacement comes up — and it does — Alex points to a pattern that has played out before. When spreadsheets arrived, people predicted mass job losses in accounting. Instead, the profession grew. Some small business owners did start managing their own five-line chart of accounts, and some will use AI to handle basic recordkeeping themselves. But that's not your client. "As accountants, it puts you in a very unique position to elevate yourself in terms of your AI skills and demonstrate to businesses, I know how to use this tool exceptionally well." The expertise gap has always been the value. AI doesn't close that gap — it widens it in your favor if you lean in. A Crawl, Walk, Run Framework for Getting Started Alex is practical about adoption. Start by picking one AI tool you've already heard of — maybe tried once — and use it for everyday tasks: drafting a client email, writing a performance review, planning a trip. Get comfortable at that level before adding complexity. Walking looks like connecting your AI to your Slack, email, or call recordings and asking it to synthesize information — summarizing client pain points before a proposal, for example. Running is letting AI handle a meaningful portion of your day-to-day operations. "Just get started," Alex says. "Over time, get more sophisticated, and then over time, let it be the primary operating system for you." Handling Data Privacy the Right Way Financial data demands careful handling, and Alex doesn't gloss over it. His checklist for vetting any AI vendor: confirm they are SOC 2 Type 2 compliant with a reputable auditor (not a quick rubber-stamp), verify that data privacy agreements exist between your vendor and the underlying model providers like OpenAI or Anthropic, and look for a genuine philosophy of data protection — not just a claim on a website. For teams that are still nervous about connecting client data to AI tools, his advice mirrors the crawl-walk-run approach: start by using AI internally with your own team's Slack and shared drives. Build confidence there before expanding to client-facing workflows. A Bigger Demand for Accountants Is Coming Alex's outlook for the next one to five years is genuinely optimistic. He sees AI acting as a catalyst for what he calls a "Cambrian explosion of demand for accounting." As business models shift from billable hours toward fixed-fee engagements and technology enables firms to handle more clients with the same headcount, he expects more businesses — not fewer — to seek out qualified accounting professionals. "Accountants can get more done with less, driving an influx of demand for what accounting firms can provide." The firms positioning themselves now, building AI literacy and deepening client relationships, are the ones that will be ready to capture that demand. Links Mentioned Truewind — Alex's AI-powered accounting platform The Successful Bookkeeper — show resources and guest information PureBookkeeping — episode sponsor, proven system to grow your bookkeeping business About the Guest Alex Lee is the co-founder and CEO of Truewind, an AI-powered accounting platform built for accounting firms and corporate finance teams. Before founding Truewind, Alex worked as an aerospace engineer at Boeing, spent time in venture capital, and built a financial planning and analysis company. Truewind launched in the same month as ChatGPT and has spent the past three and a half years building what Alex describes as an "agentic workspace" for accountants — integrating with QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct, and NetSuite to help teams cut close time by 30 to 50%. You can reach Alex directly on LinkedIn or learn more at truewind.ai. About the host Michael Palmer Michael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

  4. Aug 18

    EP545: Jon Sheldon - Lead With Purpose: Battle-Tested Lessons For Bookkeeper-Owners

    See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → Jon Sheldon has lived through more transitions than most people can imagine — Marine Corps infantry, corporate finance director, and now founder of Belleau Wood Coaching. This episode is a practical conversation about what it actually takes to lead yourself and your team well: getting clear on purpose, planning for what will go wrong, and building the kind of confidence that only comes from taking action. Whether you're just starting your bookkeeping practice or managing a growing team, there's something here for you. Chapters [00:00] Purpose as the Common Thread[02:54] Jon's Background: Marines to Finance[08:00] Life's Purpose vs. Purpose Right Now[10:48] Accepting the Cost of Transition[15:00] Contingency Plans Beat Burning Boats[17:54] The Six-Step Decision Framework[22:00] Failure, Resilience, and Confidence[26:00] The Four-Pillar Performance Blueprint[31:00] Accountability and Radical Honesty[34:00] How to Connect with JonPurpose Is Not Just a Cliché Jon believes purpose is the most overlooked driver in business — and in life. "Most people I run into don't ever take the time to, or have never taken the time to, really plan it out or think about what, how are they living a purposeful life?" It doesn't have to be a grand existential answer. Finding what fills you with purpose right now is enough to start leading better — yourself and the people around you. Plan for What Will Go Wrong One of the most practical ideas Jon brings from his Marine Corps days is what he calls "accepting the cost." Most people building a business focus on the vision and avoid thinking through what could go wrong — because they don't want to scare themselves out of it. Jon flips that: "Most battles are won with better contingency plans. That's how most missions are won — by thinking through the challenges and obstacles that are inevitably going to come." Knowing your worst-case scenarios in advance doesn't kill confidence. It creates it. A Six-Step Decision Framework Jon teaches a repeatable process he calls Clarity, Condition, Cost, Align, Act, Adapt. Get clear on what you're deciding. Do a gear check — do you have everything you need? Establish the cost of what could go wrong. Make sure your first action actually aligns with your goal. Act. Then adapt based on what you learn. "I've had the best plan and then the first action has nothing to do with pushing my business forward." The framework keeps that from happening. Failure Is Part of the Deal Jon is direct about this: failing is how you build the confidence to lead. "You might not hire the right person the first time. You might not make a great investment here or there. It's how you bounce back from that and get resilient that's going to really boost your confidence." If you're just getting started, expect some rough patches. If you have a clear purpose tied to where you're going, those rough patches are easier to push through — because the destination still matters. The Four-Pillar Performance Blueprint Jon works with every client through a four-pillar framework: Purpose (your why), Vision (a day-in-the-life picture of where you're headed, three years out), Ecosystem (who and what you're surrounding yourself with — including your tools and your workspace), and Motivators (what actually energizes you to take action). From there, his coaching is high accountability and action-driven: clients leave every session with a tracked action step, session notes, and metrics they've defined themselves. As Jon puts it, he's "tactfully tough and radically honest" — because most business owners don't have enough people in their corner telling them the truth. Links mentioned Belleau Wood Coaching website: belleauwood.coachInstagram: @belleauwood_coachingLinkedIn: Jonathan Sheldon (search "Jonathan Sheldon Belleau Wood Coaching")Start With Why by Simon SinekAbout the guest Jon Sheldon is the founder of Belleau Wood Coaching and a former Marine Corps infantryman who completed two back-to-back deployments to Iraq, leading 13 Marines through more than 200 combat missions. After leaving the military, he built a 14-year career in financial planning — running his own practice and then directing a regional team — before going full time into leadership coaching. He works with business owners and their teams on purpose, decision-making, and building the kind of resilient confidence that actually holds up when things get hard. About the host Michael Palmer Michael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

  5. Aug 11

    EP544: Nancy Benet - Fix The Leaks First: How Efficiency Beats Hiring Every Time

    See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → Nancy Benet, CPA, fractional CFO, and founder of Fix It Accounting, joins Michael Palmer for a conversation that is equal parts hard-won life lessons and practical bookkeeping wisdom. If you work with small business owners — or you are one — this episode will give you a sharper eye for the financial warning signs that show up long before a crisis does. Chapters [00:00] Nancy's Origin Story Begins [02:28] Five Failed Businesses, $650K in Debt [06:08] Robbing Business Cash Flow [08:40] Opening Up and Taking Responsibility [12:28] Hiring Before You're Ready [15:30] Hidden Costs of a New Hire [18:00] Building the Firm From Scratch [22:00] Advisory Work and a $600K Win [24:30] Finding Clients Today [27:00] Using AI With Clients From Rock Bottom to Running a Firm Nancy's path to accounting was anything but straight. After leaving a CPA firm, failing at five businesses with her husband, and waking up at 45 with four children, no income, and $650,000 in debt, she had no obvious next step. What she did have was her CPA license and a willingness to start over. She landed a lease on a building the day before her intended business deal fell apart, and instead of walking away, she decided to fill that space herself. "I think that was probably the moment in my life when I stopped being a victim and I started taking responsibility," she says. That shift — from blame to ownership — gave her the confidence to hustle her way to a real client base. The Hidden Cost of Robbing Business Cash One of the most common mistakes Nancy sees — and lived herself — is pulling cash out of the business too early to fund a lifestyle the business hasn't earned yet. Big houses, expensive vehicles, family payroll that isn't justified by revenue: the money leaks out gradually and owners are often blindsided. Her advice is direct: keep three to six months of business expenses in the bank at all times, and live below your means in the early years. "That is what leads to problems later on," she says. "You just don't realize." Fix the Systems Before You Hire When clients come to Nancy wanting to add staff, her first question is whether they've made their existing operation as efficient as possible. Hiring looks like growth, but without the cash or the systems to support it, it just accelerates the leak. She walks clients through the full cost picture — not just salary, but holiday pay, absenteeism, the time spent fixing errors, and a training curve that can stretch a full year even for experienced hires. "A lot of newer businesses are not efficient at all," she says. "How can we address your systems first before you go into hiring, especially if you can't afford it?" When Clients Won't Listen — and What to Do Bookkeepers and accountants often see red flags that clients aren't ready to act on. Nancy is candid about the limits of what advisors can control: you can raise the concern, frame it carefully, and ask if they're open to a conversation, but you can't force a decision. What you can do is stay consistent and keep the door open. The clients who are willing to be guided, she finds, are also the ones most likely to grow — and to ask for the deeper advisory work that makes the relationship genuinely valuable. Building Advisory Services and Using AI Nancy started offering CFO-style work after a quick conversation with a client helped him decide to buy two pieces of equipment instead of paying off a loan — a choice that increased his net income by $600,000 the following year. That moment convinced her the advisory layer was worth building intentionally. On the technology front, her firm now uses a private AI instance to compare monthly financials year-over-year, then distills the output down to three bullet points for clients. "The client can't comprehend" a long analysis, she notes, so keeping it tight opens the door to a deeper conversation rather than closing it. Links mentioned Fix It Accounting — Nancy Benet's CPA and fractional CFO firm CareerSource — free hiring and skills-testing resource for business owners (search your state's local CareerSource office) Pure Bookkeeping — episode sponsor The Successful Bookkeeper — show resources and guest information About the guest Nancy Benet is a CPA, fractional CFO, and the founder of Fix It Accounting, based in Florida. She built her firm from the ground up after overcoming significant personal and financial setbacks, starting with IRS problem resolution and growing into a full-service accounting, bookkeeping, and business advisory practice. Nancy works with small business owners to help them understand their numbers, make smarter financial decisions, and build businesses that actually support the life they want. About the host Michael Palmer Michael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

  6. Aug 4

    EP543: Shep Hyken - Escape The Commodity Trap: How Bookkeepers Win On Experience

    See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → Customer experience expert Shep Hyken is back, and this conversation cuts straight to one of the most stubborn problems in the bookkeeping profession: the race to the bottom on price. Shep lays out why competing as a commodity is a choice — and a dangerous one — and gives bookkeepers a practical framework for building client relationships that make price almost irrelevant. Chapters [00:00] Welcome and what has changed [02:35] AI, automation, and human jobs [06:30] The commodity trap explained [10:00] Competing on experience not price [13:00] Panera and moving humans to high-impact roles [16:00] Making routine interactions memorable [19:00] The six-step I'll Be Back framework [25:00] Journey mapping your client touchpoints [28:00] Consistency is what amazing looks like [30:00] Free resources from Shep Hyken The Commodity Trap Is a Choice You Make When a client sees you as a commodity, they're looking at your price, not the value of the experience you deliver. Shep argues that most bookkeepers already have the expertise to serve virtually any client well — so expertise alone no longer differentiates you. "Somebody that views you as a commodity is looking at your price, not just the experience that you have to offer." The solution isn't to slash rates; it's to make the relationship so strong that price becomes a secondary consideration. Competitive pricing and lowest pricing are not the same thing. AI Amplifies Who You Already Are Shep is clear that AI and automation aren't going away, but the firms quietly losing ground are the ones that have over-automated and stripped out the human element. He describes his own CPA firm eliminating his year-end review meeting in favor of a digital questionnaire — and how that single change made him start shopping around. "By going automated and not having that meeting, they just threw themselves into a commodity." The better move is to use automation to absorb the repetitive, low-touch tasks so you have more capacity for meaningful client conversations — not fewer. The Six Questions That Build an "I'll Be Back" Experience Shep walks through his six-step framework for understanding why clients choose you, why they might choose a competitor instead, and how to borrow ideas from outside your industry to raise your own standard. The exercise ends by asking: after everything you've learned, does your answer to "why me?" change? He also points to Amazon's order-confirmation model as an example bookkeepers can adapt — proactive, personal communication that keeps clients informed and feeling looked after. Journey Mapping: Find the Pain Before Your Client Does One of the most practical ideas in this episode is journey mapping every touchpoint a client has with your firm — from how the phone is answered to how the monthly invoice lands. Shep uses the example of restaurateur Will Guidara, who turned paying the bill at a high-end restaurant into a moment guests couldn't wait to tell their friends about. The same thinking applies to bookkeeping: "Find where those memorable opportunities are." There are moments in every client relationship — onboarding, monthly reporting, the annual review — that feel routine to you but could be genuinely memorable for them. Consistency Is What "Amazing" Actually Looks Like Shep closes with a reframe that is easy to miss: you don't need to be dramatically better than the competition. You need to be consistently and predictably better than average. "When that word always creeps in there — they always get back to me quickly, they always have the answers — you are operating above average." Trust is built through repetition, not grand gestures. Clients who can rely on you without having to think about it are clients who never seriously consider leaving. Links Mentioned Hyken.com — Free annual customer experience research report and the Customer Confidence Score PDF (no email required) "Unreasonable Hospitality" by Will Guidara — Referenced for journey mapping and memorable experience design Pure Bookkeeping — Episode sponsor: purebookkeeping.com The Successful Bookkeeper — Show home and episode resources: thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com About the Guest Shep Hyken is the Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations and a hall-of-fame keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling author specializing in customer service and experience. He has advised organizations across industries on building loyalty, reducing churn, and creating cultures where clients feel genuinely cared for. Shep is a returning guest on The Successful Bookkeeper and brings research-backed, immediately actionable thinking every time he joins the show. About the host Michael Palmer Michael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

  7. Jul 28

    EP542: Andrew Seguin - Four Days And Thriving: Retention, Referrals, And Firm Growth - Part 2 of 2

    See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → This is the second and final part of Michael Palmer's conversation with Andrew Seguin, founder of Seguin Financial. If you want a candid look at how a bookkeeping firm doubles revenue without a big advertising budget, this episode delivers. Andrew walks through the real levers he pulls: a four-day workweek that keeps his team loyal, a disciplined approach to scope creep, and a referral engine built entirely on great service. Chapters [00:00] Introduction and Episode Recap [01:18] Four-Day Workweek Announcement [03:30] Andrew's Fridays: A Work in Progress [05:30] Scope Creep: How to Catch and Address It [09:30] Time Tracking as a Profitability Tool [12:00] How the Firm Doubled Revenue [15:00] Partnerships and Referral Strategy [18:00] Service as the Real Differentiator [21:30] Going Virtual Across Ontario [24:30] Final Advice: Start With Something The Four-Day Workweek in Practice Andrew made the switch to a Monday–Thursday, 36-hour week — with no pay cut for his team. "Working one hour extra per day doesn't feel as a big burden, but you get a whole day off every week, all year long," he explains. The response from clients has been overwhelmingly positive, and the retention impact has been real. For Andrew himself, it has gradually freed up his Fridays too — without the guilt of stepping away while his team is still at their desks. Catching Scope Creep Before It Costs You Andrew's approach to scope creep starts with the team: coach them to flag anything that feels different from the usual work, then back it up with time tracking so the numbers tell the story. Rather than hitting a client with a hard "that's out of scope," his firm offers two paths — "we can show you how to do it yourself, or we can have a conversation about a monthly increase to accommodate this." That framing keeps the conversation collaborative, not combative, and gets results either way. Partnerships and Referrals as a Growth Engine Seguin Financial grew from around a million dollars to double that in roughly 2.5 years — without meaningful advertising spend. The fuel? Strategic partnerships with fractional CFOs, outreach to franchise head offices, and a deliberate focus on asking the firm's best clients for referrals. "Our easiest client to take on is a referral," Andrew says, "because they've done probably so much work behind the scenes that at that point it's almost inevitable that they're going to become a client." Referrals arrive pre-sold — and they rarely price-shop. Service Is What Clients Can Actually See Andrew draws a clear line between quality of work and quality of service — and argues that for most clients, only one of those is visible. "Business owners are probably not going to always look at our reports. They might not really care a lot about the quality of the work. But the service they can see." Being responsive — not available at 8 PM, but back within 24 hours with an action plan — has moved Seguin Financial into a different tier in the eyes of their clients and made referrals far more frequent. Start With Something, Then Let the Data Lead Andrew's parting advice is straightforward: start tracking, even if it's just two spreadsheets. "Without time tracking, you're blind. You're honestly blind to which clients are doing very well for you and doing pretty poorly for you." He reviews his firm's analytics every month, makes a video for the team, calls out wins, and flags what to watch. That monthly discipline is what keeps the firm's profitability from quietly eroding — and what surfaces the clients worth doubling down on. Links Mentioned The Successful Bookkeeper PureBookkeeping Seguin Financial — find Andrew on LinkedIn About the Guest Andrew Seguin is the founder of Seguin Financial, a virtual bookkeeping firm based in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. With over eight years in the business, Andrew has grown his firm to serve clients across Ontario, with a focus on e-commerce and owner-operated businesses. He is known in the bookkeeping community for his data-driven approach to profitability and his commitment to building a firm culture that keeps great people around for the long haul. About the host Michael Palmer Michael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

  8. Jul 21

    EP541: Andrew Seguin - Double The Revenue: Systems And Delegation That Scaled His Firm To $2M - Part 1 of 2

    See what the team at The Successful Bookkeeper has on right now → Andrew Seguin was already running a strong bookkeeping firm when he last appeared on this podcast — at $1 million in revenue with a team of eight. Two and a half years later, he's back with a $2 million firm and a team of fifteen. In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Andrew walks through the real work behind that growth: the systems he built, the delegation habits he had to form, and the profitability metrics that changed how he runs everything. Chapters [00:00] Opening quote on delegation [00:42] Introducing Andrew Seguin [02:30] From $1M to $2M: the story [05:30] Getting out of the weeds [09:00] Building training systems that scale [13:00] Managing change without overwhelming the team [17:00] Introducing the effective hourly rate [23:00] Building the profitability dashboard [28:00] Time tracking: getting team buy-in [34:00] Pricing strategy and the 3-month clause Getting Out of the Weeds Even after hitting $1 million, Andrew was still deep in the day-to-day — doing bookkeeping, managing clients directly, and holding too much tax knowledge himself. The path to $2 million required him to deliberately reduce his own workload. "I was probably still doing a lot of day-to-day work," he says. "I knew I had some goals for '24 and '25, which was to reduce my own workload." That meant hiring a dedicated payroll team, bringing on a tax specialist, and doubling down on the pod structure — senior and junior team members working together as a unit. Delegation Starts With Systems, Not Just Trust One of Andrew's clearest lessons: delegation without a proper training system is just dumping work on people. He invested heavily in building a training package so that new hires could learn the firm's tools, standards, and workflows without having to figure things out from scratch. "You spend a little bit of time upfront — it's always hard because you have to find time to do it. But once you get over that hump, that's where things really start cascading into a really strong effect." He also cautions against piling on too much change in a single year, aiming instead for one meaningful improvement goal per year so the team isn't overwhelmed. The Effective Hourly Rate: A Metric That Changed Everything The single biggest profitability driver Andrew introduced was tracking each client's effective hourly rate (EHR) — revenue divided by hours worked on that file. His firm uses ClickUp for time tracking and QuickBooks Online for revenue data, feeding into a custom-built dashboard that shows the team exactly where they stand, client by client. "We essentially cut about 10% of our clients and then priced up about 40% of our clients to a rate that we wanted internally." The target range is $125–$150 per hour, minimum. Before this system, the firm's average was around $106–$108 per hour. After 18 months of using the data, it's closer to $250. Transparent Data, Aligned Teams Andrew doesn't hide this metric from his staff. The management team sees it. The bookkeepers who work on those files are aware of it. When a client's EHR falls short, the conversation isn't about poor performance — it's about scope creep, underestimated complexity, or pricing that needs revisiting. He also ties compensation growth directly to hitting those rates, so the team has a real reason to track their time accurately. "I'm very transparent — you guys wouldn't have these increases the way you have been getting for the last 3 years if we didn't have this data." Pricing, Minimums, and the 3-Month Revisit Clause Andrew's pricing approach is a hybrid of fixed and value-based: estimate the hours, multiply by the target EHR, then add complexity factors like multi-currency, e-commerce, or payroll. The firm's minimum for monthly engagements is $1,000, with an average around $1,600. Critically, every new engagement includes a clause allowing the firm to revisit pricing after three months — when actual time and complexity data is in hand. "We've had to do that a few times because there is no perfect system. A questionnaire and a quick conversation isn't going to tell you enough about the complexities and the volume of the file." Links Mentioned PureBookkeeping — episode sponsor The Successful Bookkeeper — resources and episode archive ClickUp — project and time-tracking tool used by Seguin Financial About the Guest Andrew Seguin is the founder of Seguin Financial, a virtual bookkeeping firm based in Canada with a team of fifteen full-time staff. Over eight and a half years, Andrew grew his firm from a solo side practice to a $2 million business, built around strong systems, transparent team culture, and data-driven client management. He is a frequent speaker and educator in the bookkeeping community. About the host Michael Palmer Michael Palmer is the host of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast and co-founder of Pure Bookkeeping and The Successful Bookkeeper. He started this work because of his father — a brilliant electrical contractor who worked twice as hard as he should have had to, because nobody on the financial side was in his corner. That gap is what The Successful Bookkeeper exists to close. His view: bookkeepers are the most undervalued force in small business — and every bookkeeper who builds a real business changes two families: theirs, and their clients'.

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The Successful Bookkeeper Podcast is a weekly show to help increase your confidence, work smarter and build a business you love. Each week you'll listen to inspiring guests who will share their success secrets, so you can take your bookkeeping enterprise and life to another level. Some of them include New York Times Best-Selling Author of E-Myth, Michael E. Gerber, Pure Bookkeeping Co-Founder, Debbie Roberts, the host of The Productive Woman podcast, Laura McClellan and the author of *I Know How She Does It*, Laura Vanderkam. If you're a bookkeeping business owner who is looking for an uplifting, entertaining and informative podcast exclusively for YOU then you have arrived at the right place! Get ready because your journey towards success begins — now. Your Host Michael Palmer is an acclaimed business coach who has helped hundreds of bookkeepers across the world push through their fears and exponentially grow their businesses and achieve the quality of life they've always wanted.

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